Hard to be sad at Happy Days Dream Cars in Warrensburg

Even though there aren’t many car shows scheduled around Kansas City right now, that doesn’t mean that you can’t go check out some nice cars once in a while. Take Happy Days Dream Cars in nearby Warrensburg, Mo. Owner John Meyer had a whole showroom full of very nice things to see. It was definitely worth the short trip out of town.

How many ’57 Pontiac Bonnevilles have you ever seen? Well, since they only built 630 of them, my guess would be, not very many. But they had one of these fuel-injected beauties at Happy Days, and it was a pretty stunning machine. These were fast cars when they were new, but today they’re even more significant for their 1950s kitsch. Everything from their off –the-shoulder leather seat pattern to the chrome spears, ribs, and emblems make this car a great example of its time period. It’s one of those expensive, exclusive cars that General Motors used to build back when they were the best in the business. You could own this one for $159,000.

Here’s something I can’t actually say I’ve ever seen before. It is a 1948 International KB-1 wood-bodied station wagon. When I think of old Binders, I think of farm trucks and stake beds. This is something else altogether. I mean, look at it—it’s beautiful. All that finely crafted wood, the contrast of the yellow wheels against the red interior, everything about this is upscale. $85,000 is a lot of money for anything, but for a rig as unusual and nice as this is, it might be a bargain.

This is a ’56 Ford F-100 pickup that we actually saw last weekend at the Mecum auction in Kansas City. It had hubcaps on it there, but I know it’s the same truck, because you don’t forget something like this. It may be nicest one of these I’ve ever seen. Everything from the color to the options to the quality of the restoration was first-rate. This one had the Fordomatic automatic transmission, and a 312-c.i. V8 out of a ’57 Thunderbird under the hood. This is about as good as an old truck gets.

I can’t honestly say that I’m the world’s biggest Studebaker fan, but a car like this ’55 President Speedster could do a lot to change my view. With their machine-turned dashboard applique and diamond-pattered leather, these low-slung machines were pretty sporty in their day. And that 259-c.i. V8 under the hood didn’t hurt their street cred either. This is the nicest one of these I saw all day. Of course, it was the only once I saw all day. But even if I had seen more of them, I suspect that this one would still be the nicest. $69,900 takes it home.

At $325,000, this ’69 Mustang Boss 429 was the highest-priced car in the showroom. Happy Days claims this was one of the first 50 hand-built prototypes and the first to be painted candy apple red. I’m not a Mustang expert by any means, but I know these things were beasts, and this one looked perfect to me. You could tell it was special to them, because it was one of the few cars in the place they had behind stanchions.

And any Trans Am fan would love to own this ’79 WS6 with 11,000 original miles. Formerly part of the Pontiac Historical Services collection, this car still wore its original Mayan Red paint and sat on the original Goodyear Polysteel tires. Yeah, they want $35,000 for it, but where you gonna’ find a better one?

As usual, I took pictures of everything in there for you to look at, which can be seen in the slideshow below. Or click this link for a better version of the slideshow. 

And for more information about Happy Days Dream Cars, be sure to visit their website at http://www.happycarz.com/.